


The Source of Light

by josiepug



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, JB Appreciation Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 11:09:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2386166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime Lannister is alone in the dark at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Source of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for J/B Appreciation Week's symbol challenge. I didn't have as much time to work on this one as I would have liked, but here it is.

The end of the world was dark, cold and not much else. Jaime Lannister pulled his cloak tightly around himself, wondering whether it would ever end. His watch. The night. This war against things that were not human and should not need killing. His hopes were not high. The number of living men diminished every day and the dead rose every night.

The days were getting shorter.

Wind whipped at Jaime’s frozen cheeks, making him shiver. The Night’s Watch was as pointless as he had imagined it would be. _What in the name of the Seven is he supposed to be able to see when watching in the pitch black night, anyway?_ Experimentally, Jaime raised both arms in front of his face. In this light there was no difference. In this light he could almost be whole. Sighing, his arms fell back to his sides.

The darkness was a physical presence, closing in from every direction, both a warning and a temporary reprieve. When it came, the pale blue light of the Others was worse than any darkness. That was why he wasn’t carrying a torch. Fuel was precious and there was only one enemy that the Watch was looking for now. One that didn’t need to hide in the dark. 

There were other men pacing the outskirts of the camp, silent and unseen, within shouting distance and yet so far away that there may as well have been the Narrow Sea between them. Jaime may as well have been alone in the whole world, the final sputtering remnant of a fire that had burned itself to pieces.

Everything was gone and Jaime Lannister was alone in the darkness. 

Before, an eternity ago, there had been fire. Fire so bright that it burned onto the back of his eyelids, the final imprint of a King’s Landing whose spark had caught twenty years late. He had been helpless, a spectator of a gruesome lights show. Watching the wildfire cleanse the world of that city full of glory and shame, Jaime fancied he could hear his sweet sister’s screams as she was incinerated by the urgency of her dreams.

That fire too had gone out, eventually. King’s Landing was puddled metal and ash now, another blot on a world of night.

In the darkness, the wildfire seemed to dance in front of him. What had happened to the days when fire was Lannister red? Now everything was green and pale blue and without comfort. That was what the world had come to. 

_Crunch._

Jaime whipped around, searching for the source of the noise, heart pounding. The darkness was too intense to make out so much as a silhouette. He held his breath, trying to hear…

“Damn.” And the golden torchlight bounced off blue eyes and Jaime would have been afraid if he hadn’t been so relieved. 

“You didn’t think I would leave you in the dark, did you?” She smiled with fat lips and crooked teeth and in this light, she was beautiful.


End file.
